UPDATE 3-Amazon picks New York City and Virginia for $5 bln new headquarters

Amazon.com Inc
picked America's financial and political capitals for its split
new headquarters, saying on Tuesday it will build offices for up
to 25,000 people in New York City and close by Washington, D.C.

Amazon plans to spend $5 billion on the two new developments
and expects to get more than $2 billion in tax credits and
incentives, with plans to apply for more.

Its move ends a frenzied year-long bidding war among cities
across North America, splitting the location among two
finalists. In addition, Nashville, Tennessee, will be home to
what Amazon is calling an "Operations Center of Excellence,"
adding 5,000 corporate jobs.

The world's third-most valuable company behind Apple Inc
and Microsoft Corp will boost its presence
around New York City and the nation's capital while also giving
it more of a foothold in the center of the country as it seeks
to gain a recruiting edge over Silicon Valley tech companies.
Hiring at the new facilities will begin in 2019.

The new Washington metro region headquarters will be located
in National Landing, in Arlington, Virginia, and the New York
City headquarters will be located in the Long Island City
neighborhood in Queens, across the East River from Midtown
Manhattan and the United Nations.

The area now includes some high-rise apartment blocks, a
narrow canal, and manufacturing and warehouse buildings. Its
attractions include a large Pepsi-Cola advertising sign and a
clock counting down the hours until the end of U.S. President
Donald Trump's first presidential term.

"These two locations will allow us to attract world-class
talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for
years to come," said Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeff
Bezos. Bezos is the world's richest man with about $130 billion
in Amazon stock alone.

The company said on Tuesday it will receive
performance-based direct incentives of $1.525 billion from the
state of New York, based on creating 25,000 jobs in Long Island
City.

Amazon will receive performance-based direct incentives of
$573 million based on the company creating 25,000 jobs with an
average wage of over $150,000 in Arlington.

The world's largest online retailer has already been awarded
more than $1.6 billion of state and local public subsidies
across the United States since 2000, with most of that after
2012, according to a database from the Washington-based
government watchdog Good Jobs First.

Amazon did not comment on the Good Jobs First numbers but
said it has invested $160 billion in the United States since
2010, including in warehouses, data centers and employee
compensation. I

It estimated New York would see incremental tax revenue of
more than $10 billion over 20 years as a result of its
investment and job creation; Virginia would take in $3.2
billion; and Tennessee more than $1 billion over 10 years.

In Nashville, Amazon will receive performance-based direct
incentives of up to $102 million based on the company creating
5,000 jobs with an average wage of over $150,000.

Amazon said the job-creation incentives it expected amounted
to $48,000 per position in New York and $22,000 per job in
Virginia.

"Economic incentives were one factor in our decision - but
attracting top talent was the leading driver," Amazon said on
its corporate blog.

YEAR-LONG COMPETITION

Amazon had received 238 proposals from across North America
vying for a home base in addition to its Seattle headquarters.
New York and Virginia beat out 18 others, including Los Angeles
and Chicago, on a short list Amazon released in January.

Cities and states promised billions of dollars of tax breaks
and other inducements in exchange for Amazon's so-called HQ2.
They also handed over infrastructure, labor and other data that
could prove useful in other ways to Amazon.

It was not immediately clear how negotiations unfolded once
Amazon settled on the plan for two offices. The company had
originally said it would spend more than $5 billion and add up
to 50,000 workers at one location.

Amazon said the split would give it more geographic
diversity for recruiting and could also help lessen congestion
and cost-of-living increases that would have accompanied one
bigger office.

The company has already had to navigate similar issues at
its more than 45,000-person urban campus in Seattle. An
affordable housing crisis there prompted the city council to
adopt a head tax on businesses in May, which Amazon helped
overturn in a subsequent city council vote.

Some critics had pushed for more transparency from cities
and states in the bidding process, warning that the benefits of
hosting a massive Amazon office may not offset the
taxpayer-funded incentives and other costs.

The company has said it helped boost Seattle's economy
indirectly by $38 billion between 2010 and 2016. Construction
and service work has increased, catering to Amazon, and the
company said it also helped attract other businesses to Seattle.

Amazon shares were up more than 1 percent in morning trade.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco
Additional reporting by Arjun Panchadar and Supantha Mukherjee
in Bengaluru
Writing by Nick Zieminski
Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Bill Rigby)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)